Grumblings about changes in Facebook’s layout and policies are standard practice for everyone familiar with the social media giant. But some European governments are taking Facebook’s practices more seriously. This week, interdisciplinary scholars and researchers in Belgium issued a draft report entitled “From social media service to advertising network: A critical analysis of Facebook’s Revised Policies and Terms.” The report is provisional, and “will be updated after further research, deliberation and commentary.”

In comments yesterday during a cybersecurity conference at the New America Foundation, the Director of the NSA, Admiral Mike Rogers faced vocal criticism from the tech community (including cryptography expert Bruce Schneier and Yahoo CISO Alex Stamos). The criticism focused on the Obama administration's insistence that it should have access to everyone's encrypted communications via a backdoor, sometimes called a "golden key." Security experts caution that such a magic key, usable only by the "good guys" is—like magic—not actually possible.

Copyright policy is not something that should be rushed into without adequate evidence and consultation. Yet since only last December, the Australian government has sent stakeholders scrambling to develop a new code of practice on copyright that would could change the lay of the land for the Internet industry for decades to come. The code is designed to force ISPs to adopt new “reasonable measures” to deter copyright infringement—measures that the Australian High Court had earlier decided that they were under no obligation to adopt.

We didn't know how much copyright maximalists longed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—until we saw this creepy "open love letter" to the TPP from one of the biggest, most powerful copyright lobby groups, the Global Intellectual Property Center. We couldn't have made this up if we tried. Here's one part of it:

You know, dear TPP, that I will drop to one knee and say “I do” for gold—no, diamond—standards for intellectual property. My creative and innovative talents need your protection. Without trade agreements like you, it would be a long, hard journey to jumpstart our economies.